Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“As book collectors know all too well: We only regret our economies, never our extravagances.”–
According to my research, a book collection is a random group of books that you own and keep. A collection focuses on gathering items, buying titles you enjoy, like mystery novels, or owning specific rare pieces, something I have in limited numbers but some might be considered semi-rare since my collection goes back 60 years or so. A home library, on the other hand, is a set of books that is sorted, cataloged, and arranged with care for easy reading. It uses a clear system like genre, author, or subject so that you can quickly find any book. Oh how I wish that was true even for my 500 plus collection of DVDs, Blu-rays and 4K movies. I guess this indicates I have a collection, which sort of makes sense. I have that kind of mentality when it comes to my other “stuff” including cameras.
Everybody is a Critic
Because of my book, Getting Started with Digital Imaging, I was recently invited to participate in a book festival that was being held in Scotland. The only problem, while the name of the person sending the email was real and the festival was also real, the email was a scam. I wrote that particular book in 2005 and it was published in 2006 and Amazon is selling new copies of the second edition, although I never received a penny from that second printing. More interesting to me was looking at some of the Amazon reviews for this book. While more than half of the reviews were four and five stars, the one star reviews were priceless. Here’s a sample:
“…the author should be a politician – talks a lot of words but doesn’t actually say anything or commit himself to anything.”
“Another serious flaw is how dated much of the material and illustrations are.”
I would have loved to respond to these reviews, much like it’s all the rage on social media but the one thing I’ve learned over the years is that you can’t make people love you, as much as you might try.
Mini Reviews & Thoughts
In the last Book Club post I mentioned that in addition to Death at the White Hart, I had also purchased The Medusa Protocol, The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts, and a hardback copy of the non-fiction The Long Death of Adolf Hitler.
The Medusa Protocol by Rob Hart is built around the premise of the establishment of an organization of professional assassins who are trying to quit their business, much like Alcoholics Anonymous but for hired killers. The plot revolves around the abduction of one of its female members and there’s whole James Bondian–the movies, not the books–feel about the villains (more than one) involved. It’s fun, breezy beach read, although summer is fading fast.
The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts by Robert Thorogood is the fifth installment of the Marlow Murder Club series and that has been developed as a TV show for PBS, although I’ve never seen it. The first in the series was published in 2022 and bears a passing resemblance to The Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman that began in 2021. The Marlow group is made up of three mature ladies, including one who is the vicar’s wife, who solve murders and Judith Potts is more or less their ringleader, By the way, Marlow is a real place. It’s an historic market town in Buckinghamshire, England. If you like The Thursday Murder Club you’ll enjoy this cozy mystery. It’s a fun read.
Caroline Sharples’ The Long Death of Adolf Hitler was a tough slog for me for many reasons but since I am not nor have ever been “a politician” as one (aforementioned) reviewer claimed, I won’t go into them. I found the book alternatively interesting and depressing from page-to-page, Recommended only for the most die-hard, completist who’s interested in World War II and its aftermath.
Coming Up
I haven’t reviewed any automobile books in a while but that’s about to change. Right now, I’m still waiting to receive a requested copy of The Complete Book of Jaguar: Every Model Since 1935 by Nigel Thorely but I’m worried that I’ve dropped off this publisher’s radar because of some email problems I had.
Instead I just received an advance and unrequested copy of, Motorsports Mavericks by Pete Bird and George Levi, with a forward by Roger Penske. The book is described as “an insightful, wistful, occasionally humorous look at that golden-and-simultaneously-fraught age when all race drivers courted danger with little in the way of a safety net.” That sounds like a fun read. A review of it will be, I think, upcoming before the Jaguar book.